


The Golden Age of Heroes

by bassdropontwo (jimandtonic)



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Misunderstandings, Moral Ambiguity, Mysteries, Rated For Violence, Slow Burn, Superheroes, Superpowers, Tags are purposefully vague to avoid spoilers, Trauma, attempts at humor, by both the author and the main character, cameos by other Kpop artists, in both the romance and the story, jun is a sad boy, like extremely slow burn, minor original characters, super hero tropes, with a dash of political intrigue, ya know your usual superhero comic fare
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-19
Updated: 2020-08-27
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:54:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22798891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jimandtonic/pseuds/bassdropontwo
Summary: Pledis City is a pretty great place to live, as long as you don’t care about the occasional mutant pigeon swarms, or the price of “psychic storm” insurance premiums, or the dinosaur that sometimes rampages through the streets to stop the hordes of darkness from overtaking the city. For Wen Junhui, it used to be the perfect city to pursue his work as the super-powered hero Half-Moon, but now Jun is getting a little tired of the constant state of madness and mayhem. Especially now that the mayhem seems to be escalating.With growing threats on the horizon, Jun will have to deal with his rag-tag team of superheroes, their mysterious and powerful benefactor, some over-eager bloggers, a nosy ex-boyfriend, a slimy corporate goon, and a mysterious rash of violence that all seems to connect in ways that could spell disaster for the city.Because Pledis City holds some terrifying secrets: secrets that cost lives, secrets that save them, secrets that could cause Jun’s entire world to change. And some people are doing their best to make sure those secrets don’t stay secret very long.---The Seventeen superhero AU that absolutely no one asked for but I wrote anyway.
Relationships: Minor or Background Relationship(s), Past Wen Jun Hui | Jun/Yan An, Wen Jun Hui | Jun/Xu Ming Hao | The8, eventual Jeon Wonwoo/Kim Mingyu
Comments: 28
Kudos: 80





	1. An Average Day of Hero Work

**Author's Note:**

> Quick note before getting started: Dino's stage name is obviously pronounced "DEE-no" but because I'm incredibly clever and witty and I really aimed high for this pun, his alias in this work is "DIE-no," like dinosaur.

The Pledis City sign stands proudly at the end of Centennial Bridge just outside the bustling downtown metropolis. Underneath the bold white letters of the city’s name is the slogan, “Here, we reach for the stars,” which some city planner in days gone by must have thought was a terribly clever little play on the city’s constellation-based name. Usually the sign gleams like a shiny new penny, but currently the “o” of “for” has a bullet hole through it, and the upper right-hand corner is melting slowly onto the pavement below. 

This is the last thing Wen Junhui notices before he crashes headlong into the star-studded sheet of metal and falls with a sickening thud onto the hood of someone’s minivan. It hurts, his alien biology working overtime to repair whatever injuries the fall caused, and his head rings for a moment. He closes his eyes against the blinding sun and pretends, just for a moment, that he doesn’t have to get back up and rejoin the fight. 

Today was supposed to be his weekend: one of those days where he got to stay in bed till noon, have a warm shower, a cup of espresso, maybe a nice omelet. But _nooo_ , things can’t ever go Jun’s way. Hell, he didn’t even get to eat anything except for half a Cliff bar before he was getting punched in the face by the villain-of-the-week.

“Half-Moon!” A worried voice breaks through Junhui’s reverie and as he struggles to sit up, an equally worried face appearing in front of him. Coup D’etat grabs his chin and slaps his cheek gently a few times. “Half-Moon, are you alright?” 

Junhui really wants to groan and tell him that, no he isn’t alright, that the bad guy must have hit something important and he should just go home and lie down for a minute. However, he knows that their makeshift team needs all the help they can get dealing with this threat (which is a group of super-powered, bipedal, mutant alligators, because _of course_ it is). So Jun shakes his head to clear away the bright spots in his vision, takes a deep breath, and pushes his sweaty lavender hair away from his forehead. “Yeah,” he grunts, brushing bits of shattered windscreen off of his costume, “Yeah, I’m good, I’m fine.” 

Coup D’etat’s brow furrows behind his domino mask, but he backs away, nonetheless. “Okay, if you’re sure.” The sound of tearing metal drags his attention away from Jun, and he starts heading in the direction of the commotion, shouting over his shoulder as he does. “Let The Librarian know if you need medical attention and he’ll give you a route out of this mess.” He doesn’t wait for Jun’s reply, just launches himself directly at one of the mutilated, fleshy monstrosities.

“Fuck,” Junhui sighs and slides slowly off the ruined Honda. Above him, Angel gets nearly pulverized by a motorcycle, but swerves at the last second so the front tire only passes through one of his spectral wings. Junhui sighs again. “Balls, shit, _fuck_.” 

“Man, who peed in your corn flakes this morning?” Comes a sudden voice from directly next to his head.

Jun doesn’t scream because that would be embarrassing, but he does jump a few inches forward. Clutching at his now racing heart, Junhui turns towards Velocity and glares, “Stop _doing_ that, you dick.” The other hero just grins and adjusts his goggles. “Where have you been, anyway?” Jun continues, rolling his shoulder to try and chase away a knot of tension that has formed there. “Aren’t you supposed to be able to get places, like, ten times faster than the normal human? And where’s your partner? We could use some heavy hitters right now.” 

The speedster crosses his arms and pouts, “Well I’m sorry that Dino actually has a life and can’t just immediately drop everything anytime there’s a mild threat to the city. And anyway,” he tosses his auburn hair petulantly, “it’s Hoshi’s fault that I’m late. He overslept and didn’t get the notification that downtown was being attacked by fucking crocodiles.” 

Almost immediately, Velocity winces, probably being berated through his earpiece by a loud and irate Hoshi. Though Jun has never met Velocity’s “mission control specialist” (Hoshi’s words, not Jun’s) in person, he’s heard him enough times through the phone during their occasional hero meetups to know that the “specialist” has what one might call a strong personality. 

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry, jeez,” Velocity mutters placatingly to Hoshi before turning to Jun, “So I have been informed that one, apparently they are alligators and not crocodiles, and two, I should probably be fighting them right now. So nice chat, but I gotta dash.” He flashes Jun a toothy grin and then disappears, leaving behind a trail of dust in his wake. 

Jun yells ineffectively after the speedster, “You didn’t answer my question!” And then sighs one more time for good measure. A few feet away, Coup D’etat gets hurled into a concrete barrier and Jun decides he’s probably had enough time to catch his breath.

The current state of the battlefield is disheartening, to say the least. Though they’ve managed to lure the alligator gang to a less populated area, the surrounding buildings are still taking a lot of damage. Worst of all, there’s a group of civilians cowering just a few meters away from the main fight, trapped between a pile of rubble and a collapsed section of bridge. A few police officers are trying to coax people over the treacherous slope of concrete and twisted rebar while Angel tries to keep the alligators’ attention on him, but the creatures are closing in. One hero and a few bullets are not nearly enough to hold all of the monsters back. 

Leaping into action, Jun slides over the crumpled hood of a sports car and charges up an energy blast, firing it directly at the back of the alligator in front of him. The creature roars, turning away from where it was about to smash a metal stud over Angel’s head. A meaty arm swings at Jun and he ducks under it, taking the opportunity to get closer to the monster and fire another purple blast at the junction between its arm and torso. Unfortunately this means that Jun gets close enough to get a whiff of the creature’s unimaginable stench which seems to be a mixture of charred flesh, sewer water, and rotten vegetables. He gags and stumbles away from the writhing monster. 

While it’s distracted, Angel drives his spear up into the alligator’s misshapen rib cage. It lets out a guttural scream and swipes at the red-cloaked hero, who leaps out of the way and takes off into the air, summoning his weapon back to his hand with a flick of his wrist. Silhouetted against the blue of the sky, his long golden hair flowing in the ashy breeze, his armor glinting in the sunlight, his wings spread out on either side of him, Angel lives up to his name. It’s all a little on the nose for Junhui’s taste, but whatever. He’s not here to judge.

Wary now, wounded and covered in dark sludgy blood, the closest alligator backs away a few paces, drawing closer to two of its equally disgusting peers. Out of the corner of his eye, Jun sees the last few civilians start up the rubble.

“THAT’S RIGHT FUCKERS,” yells Jun, “COME AND GET IT!”

“HURRAUUUGHH!” yells the lead gator.

Jun readies himself, gathering a nimbus of purple energy around his fist with easy familiarity. As the trio reaches him, Angel swoops down from the sky and swings his spear in a large arc, catching all three monsters across their lumpy chests. Taking advantage of their momentary distraction, Jun surges forward, landing a devastating punch to the middle alligator’s torso. The smell of burning gator once again invades Jun’s nose, but he persists, pushing as much energy as he can to detonate against the creature’s solid mass. 

With a flash and a sound like a jet engine, the energy becomes too much for Jun to contain, and it surges forward, blasting the alligator backwards, through the metal guard rail, and off the edge of the bridge. Hand aching from how much energy he just forced through it, he turns to see Angel hurl his spear through one of the remaining gator’s eye sockets. Various liquids burst from the wound as the monster gives one last weak roar and then collapses to the ground. 

Jun imagines that if the last gator had possessed a proper face (and not just a veiny, toothy lump of gangrenous looking meatloaf), it would probably look very worried. He looks away from the monster and up to Angel. “You got this guy?” 

Angel just nods tersely in confirmation, tucks his wings in by his sides, and streaks towards the gator with his spear outstretched. Jun turns away before he can see if the weapon makes contact, but the hideous squelch of tearing flesh is enough to inform him that it does. 

Unfortunately, their slight victory doesn’t seem to have made much of an impact on the situation. There are still more than a dozen mutant alligators rampaging across the bridge and into the suburbs beyond. Coup D’etat is doing his best to keep them on the bridge and away from the houses, picking up huge chunks of rubble to throw at the advancing horde, but there’s not much he can do on his own.

Further into the neighborhood, three alligators are being tormented by the familiar blue blur of Velocity. The speedster seems to be doing a good job of distracting them, but their immense strength makes it hard for him to do much damage. As Jun nears, he notices that one of the gators seems to be watching the hero's movement, its beady eyes following the blue streak with worrying intelligence. Jun is about to shout a warning to Velocity, but before he can do so, the creature swipes wildly in front of itself, intercepting Velocity mid-sprint. The force of the blow throws the speedster almost ten feet and into the brick wall of a nearby bakery where he stays, unmoving. 

They’re going to need help to win this fight. 

And getting help means doing something that Jun would really rather not do. “Ah fuck,” he huffs, jogging at a sedated pace down the bridge to where the next horde of gators await. 

Hunkering down behind an overturned semi-truck, Jun takes a deep breath and “clears his mind” or whatever bullshit The Librarian told him to do in situations like this. Feeling very stupid, Jun thinks really hard about getting in contact with the other man. He’s never really gotten the hang of the whole communicating telepathically thing, so he pairs his thought message with an actual verbal one, which he says to a nearby pigeon. “Hey, um, Librarian, you there?” The pigeon flies away without responding. 

Moments later, Jun feels the tell-tale pressure on his mind and a soft voice speaks directly into his head. “Half-Moon, what do you need?”

Like always, the telepath’s deep voice in his head makes Jun’s brain feel bad in a way that if pressed, Jun might describe as itchy. “We’re not doing too well out here,” he says, this time to a lump of concrete on the ground by his foot, “do you have an ETA on Dino? Or maybe like, the national guard or something?” A crash echoes from somewhere behind him, and Jun watches Angel fly overhead towards the commotion. “There’s too many of these guys. We can’t take them all at once. Velocity’s already down for the count and I don’t know if he’s getting back up.” 

The Librarian hums thoughtfully, the sensation sending an uncomfortable shiver down Jun’s spine. “I’m having trouble contacting Dino, but more police are on their way. They should be there in seven minutes.”

In the distance, Angel lets out a pained cry. Jun is already out from behind cover and sprinting in the direction of his fallen teammates as he gives The Librarian his ultimatum, “That’s not going to be enough. We need help and we need it now!” He shuts down the psychic link and leaps at the nearest enemy. 

Hearkening back to his days as a gymnast, Jun vaults over the monster’s broad back and lands in front of its hideous maw, opened in surprise to reveal a fleshy grey tongue lolling out from between yellow teeth. Against his better judgement, Jun sticks his hand almost completely in the gator’s mouth, says, “Chew on this, dipshit,” and lets loose a blast of purple energy that knocks the monster back several feet. It doesn’t get up, just lays on the ground convulsing and coughing up smoke, so Jun counts that bad idea as a success and bolts over to where Velocity is lying on the sidewalk. 

The speedster’s pulse is, well, racing, but Jun’s pretty sure that’s normal for a guy who’s regular running speed is around a thousand miles per hour, so Jun takes a page from Coup D’etat’s book and slaps Velocity’s cheek a little. “Velocity,” the other hero stirs and Jun figures it’s fine to give him a slight shake, “Come on man, we need your help.” 

Behind Velocity’s tinted goggles, Jun can just make out the movement of eyelids opening, and the speedster comes back into consciousness with a prolonged groan. “What happened?”

With a relieved sigh, Jun sits back on his heels and pats Velocity on one shoulder, answering him, “You got your ass kicked, that’s what happened,” then stands stiffly, echoing Velocity’s groan with one of his own. “Think you can get back into the fight?” 

“Yeah,” Velocity mutters, sitting up and clutching his ribs, “yeah, I’ll be fine, just give me a minute.” 

Jun shakes his head, ruefully, “We might not have a minute, my guy.” Above them, Angel strikes again at the horde below, his spear flashing between the ground and his hand, the armor at his leg torn and stained with blood. A few meters ahead, Coup D’etat slips in between two hulking creatures, his usually green uniform stained black with gator goop. 

Trembling with the effort, Velocity stands, shaking dust out of his tangled mop of hair, and holds out his hand, which Jun takes in a firm handshake. “Well,” Velocity is uncharacteristically solemn, “If this is it, then thanks I guess.”

A small smile tugs at Junhui’s lips as he returns the handshake. “Yeah, you too.” 

Both heroes turn to the carnage. The alligators turn to them. The world slows down to a pinpoint of a second in which everything happens in slow motion. 

Jun breathes in.

And then the world is shattered by a bone rattling boom. From around the corner, a massive, scaly, toothy head appears followed shortly by the rest of a fully-grown T-Rex. A dinosaur foot ending in wicked looking claws crashes down on the head of one of the gators, squashing it into goo underfoot. 

“HELL YEAH!” Velocity yells, pumping his fist in the air, “THAT’S MY BOY!” 

Dino straightens up to his full forty-foot height and roars, and the alligators start running. His enormous head swings low and grabs one of the creatures in his powerful jaws. The crunch of breaking bones echoes through the streets and Junhui sinks to his knees, relief coursing through him. “Oh thank god.” 

Angel descends slowly from the heavens, buckling on his injured leg and sliding down next to Jun. “I hear that,” he says, raking a hand through his sweaty hair, leaving a streak of blood in its wake, “thank fucking god.”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello dear readers! This was an idea that has stuck with me for a while but I only finally got around to writing, and man! am I having a blast with this story. 
> 
> That being said, updates will probably be slow as I have quite a lot on my plate. I am going to try to post semi-regularly, probably in two-week periods, just because I want to give myself enough time to have extra chapters ready to post in case something happens. 
> 
> Anyway, let me know what you all think of this first chapter! Again, I've had a lot of fun playing with this idea and I hope that people enjoy it as much as I have. Feel free to leave thoughts and questions in the comments, and if you notice any weird grammar or formatting things, I will be happy to address those should you bring them to my attention. 
> 
> Last but not least, I would like to thank penmans_anthology for letting me bounce ideas off of her and for reading through a few of my drafts. She has an absolutely wonderful Seventeen fic called Till... that you should definitely check out if you have the chance. 
> 
> Thanks so much for checking this out, and I hope you enjoyed it!


	2. Aftermath Statistics

The downside of attending post-battle meetings is that Jun has to sit in an abandoned warehouse and listen to people talk about statistics for an hour before he gets to go home. The upside is that he gets snacks. 

“The most concerning thing to me,” Coup D’etat says, peering intently at a screen replaying footage of the alligator’s first appearance, “is that we don’t know what these creatures wanted.” He pauses the video on a frame of one of the gators tearing the door off a delivery truck and turns to face the rest of the group, blank eyes somehow intensely earnest despite their masked-ness. “Usually when we fight villains, they have some sort of mission statement, something to prove, something they want changed. But these things,” he gestures at the still screen, “they were just attacking indiscriminately. What we need to find out is where they came from and why they began behaving violently.”

He waits for a moment, but no one responds. Angel is too busy getting patched up by his masked associate who is known to the group only as Joshua (he’s the one who usually brings snacks and that’s why he’s Junhui’s favorite); Velocity is hissing irritatedly at Hoshi through the phone; Dino is back in his human form, stretched out over three metal folding chairs, fast asleep, face shadowed by a plain grey hoodie; and Jun is too preoccupied by trying to get the last few drops out of his juice box to react to Coup D’etat’s news.

Luckily for the green-suited hero, The Librarian realizes that no response is going to come from the peanut gallery and takes the reigns. The tall man steps out of the shadows, the telekinetic field that surrounds him at all times drawing in small pebbles, a few Band-Aids from Joshua’s stash, and some paper clips off of Coup D’etat’s files. As always, Jun can’t seem to focus on his face, leaving The Librarian’s countenance a messy blur in his memories. “Coup D’etat is right.” 

Jun frowns around his juice box straw, ever unhappy with The Librarian’s invasion of his mind. Everyone here has a secret identity, sure, but none of the rest of them keep their secret by messing around in other peoples’ heads. It seems rude to Junhui, it’s  _ always _ seemed rude to Junhui, ever since the mysterious figure appeared in his life offering information, technology, allies, all manner of things that seemed too good to be true. Jun took the offer because he was desperate to prove himself (and desperate to stop having to wash blood out of the white parts of his cheap spandex suit), but even to this day, the whole deal still carries a stench about it that Jun can’t quite stomach. 

He doesn’t care if The Librarian knows it, either. Jun makes no assumptions about how much the telepath likes him, because judging by the number of times his blurry face has turned towards Jun, posture stiff and arms crossed, it’s not very much. And to be fair, being able to hear the thoughts of someone who pretty much constantly questions his motives probably doesn’t put The Librarian in a good mood, but Jun doesn’t give a shit. The mind stuff is freaky and brings up all sorts of moral and philosophical implications that Jun, as a super-powered individual himself, tries not to think about when he’s falling asleep at night. Usually, when he does, Jun comes to the following conclusion: The Librarian is as powerful as he is dangerous.

Also, the guy dresses like a 2000’s emo kid, and it’s weird. 

The Librarian stops in the middle of his sentence and turns to Jun. He must have heard that last thought. Oh well. 

“And?” Coup D’etat prompts after a moment of silence, startling The Librarian out of his glare-fest. “You were saying something about the rise in crime?”

The telepath rips his attention away from Jun, who just smirks and reaches down to fumble through the box of snacks Joshua brought. “Yes, I was, my apologies.” The Librarian turns his back to Jun and returns to gesturing at a confusing looking graph. “Not only has normal crime increased, superpowered crime has increased rapidly. This is a worrying trend that has only begun to appear in the last few months.”

Jun stabs a straw into a Capri Sun and slurps noisily. 

“You, as a group,” The Librarian continues, voice sounding the tiniest bit strained, “have been active for over a year with no major upticks in extreme villainy until now. Usually, in cases where hero teams have begun defending cities, there is an increase in high-level threats within the first few months, followed by a rapid decrease.” 

A loud tearing sound interrupts his thoughts as Jun pulls open a bag of chips. “Please,” Jun says grinning around a mouthful of Fritos, “continue.”

Jun likes to think that The Librarian’s eye is twitching as he begins once again. “In fact, if we look back to when the first heroes arrived in Pledis,” he nods over to Coup D’etat and Angel, still staunchly ignoring Jun’s best efforts (both physical and mental) to distract him, “we can see a similar occurrence.” 

A graph pops up on the screen, but Jun pays very little attention to it, instead focusing on the rapidly darkening sky outside. The alligator attack began late into the afternoon, so by now, it’s nearing evening and Jun really wants to go home and sleep. His shoulders and back still twinge from when he was grabbed and thrown around like a football, and as he thinks about it, he realizes that he might not have any Icy Hot left. He used the last of it after the incident with that one shitty clown villain. 

Well damn, there goes his plan to slather himself in pain reliever and watch  _ SpongeBob _ until he passes out on the couch. 

The rest of the evening goes by in a similar manner, with The Librarian struggling to impart the wisdom of his graphs to a group of tired heroes, and Jun doing his goddamn best to stop him from doing that. At one point, Jun actually gets Velocity to laugh by accidentally-on-purpose snorting tropical blast juice concentrate out of his nose. The half disgusted, half impressed look on the speedster’s face makes the telekinetic shove Jun gets from The Librarian totally worth it. 

Finally, Coup D’etat, being the de facto leader he is, takes pity on the rest of his team and wraps up the meeting. He smiles and pats Angel on the shoulder as he sends them out, saying, “We did good today, guys.” The rest of the heroes just grin and nod half-heartedly, with the exception of Dino, who just yawns and leans heavily against Velocity as they leave. 

Luckily, there are no reporters camped outside of the warehouse The Librarian chose for the day’s briefing, so Jun is able to slip away unnoticed. He has stashes of clothes all over the city, and it doesn’t take long for him to find one of them and throw sweatpants and a sweatshirt over his distinctive black and white suit, pulling the hood over his bright lavender hair. 

As he walks, he focuses on relaxing the muscles in his face, feeling the skin there stretch and reform into its natural shape, letting his hair darken back to its normal brown. His shapeshifting abilities aren’t all that strong, so his “hero face” and his “normal face” are pretty much the same thing, but it doesn’t take a lot for people to be convinced that he’s a different person. A little bit of grooming to the eyebrows, a different shade of irises, a slightly smaller nose, and suddenly, Jun has a hard time identifying his own reflection. Plus, bright purple hair is a pretty good disguise on its own. By the time Jun finishes getting his face back to normal, he has reached his neighborhood.

Junhui lives in the Rose District, which is a very pretty name for a very un-pretty place. The closer Jun gets to his apartment building, the shittier things become, until Jun is stepping around piles of garbage and keeping a close eye out for unseen cracks in the sidewalk. The bulbs are out in pretty much every single streetlamp, casting the street in shadows, broken only by the occasional neon sign glowing out from storefronts and from the insides of strip clubs. 

Only a few minutes away from his destination, Jun is forced to retreat into a nearby alleyway as a police car screams down the road, darting further into the Rose District. A spray of dirty water floods over the broken sidewalks and laps at Jun’s uniform boots, covering the white one with a thin sheen of oily dirt. He curses quietly, already dreading the scrubbing he’s going to have to do to get the various stains out of his costume. 

The door of Hannigan Luxury Apartments sticks like it usually does when Jun goes to open it up. Like most things in the Rose District, Hannigan Luxury Apartments doesn’t exactly live up to its name. Tired and short tempered, Junhui bangs on the door ineffectively for a moment before acknowledging that the lobby is empty. 

“Damnit,” he sighs, resting his head against the glass. As he’s about to start wiggling the door out of its stuck position, sirens sound in the distance. Announced by the blue and red flash of their lights, a brigade of police cars speed down the road heading in the same direction of the one Jun saw previously. 

Usually, Jun would pay them no attention. The Rose District is a cesspool of drugs, crime, and general bad shit, so seeing cops speed through this part of the city is a daily occurrence. It’s just, there’s a lot of them, and they’re moving  _ fast _ . Something bad must be going down for the Rose District squad to be booking it down the street at this hour. 

The lights fade from distinctly blue and red to a soft magenta as Jun manages to force the door open enough for him to slip through. He passes the empty security guard station on his way to the stairs, not even checking to see if the elevator is working today. Junhui has been stuck in that elevator one too many times (once in the middle of a supervillain attack, which had been a chore to explain to Coup D'etat) and he’s not about to trust it with his ascent to floor three. 

Like always, the rusted metal stairs creak and groan worryingly as Junhui drags himself from landing to landing. They really need to be replaced, someone is going to get tetanus one of these days, but they probably won’t be.

Flickering fluorescent light greets him as he pushes open the stairwell door, buzzing harshly against his temples like the beginning of a headache. The hallway is eerily empty; silent except for the sound of the lights and the faint wail of sirens that worm their way past the thin walls. Junhui’s door, number 317, stands in the middle of the hall, marked by the dent he put in it on his first night of living there after one too many shots. On autopilot, he inserts the key into the lock, gives it a twist and a jiggle to properly unlock it, and enters the apartment. 

Something is wrong. 

The pair of tennis shoes Junhui left next to the door that morning are now a few feet away from each other in the entryway, as if someone unfamiliar with their position had kicked them on their way in. And they’re still there, which means whoever did that didn’t put them back.

Someone is in Jun’s apartment.

Every muscle in his body tensed and ready for a fight, Jun enters the living room, treading lightly on the balls of his feet. Thankfully, the door doesn't creak as he pushes it closed. The living room lights are still off, just like he left them, but there’s a faint glow coming from further in the apartment. Jun slows his breathing, evening it out so no one can hear the rush of air in and out of his lungs. 

He creeps steadily past the television, past the old, worn-out armchair he picked out of a junkyard, past the one framed picture of his family, hugging the wall the whole way. If someone is here, Junhui will have to make a decision: stop them and risk exposing his secret identity, or don’t react and risk getting hurt. He has about two feet to make his decision. 

It’s the hallway light that’s on, Jun realizes as he rounds the corner. Nothing moves in the circle of yellow glow cast by the slightly flickering bulb, and as Junhui is about to move further into the apartment to investigate, the kitchen light behind him turns on.

“You know, for a superhero, one would think you’d have better locks.” Junhui whirls around, an energy bolt primed and ready on instinct, as Yan An’s tall figure steps into view from behind the kitchen counter. “Also,” his ex-boyfriend says, brandishing a spoonful of coco puffs in his direction, “you’re out of cereal.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading, I hope you enjoyed!  
> This chapter is a little bit of filler, but this fic is going to be pretty slow in the beginning. Trust me, things get crazier later on.   
> Anyway, let me know about any formatting issues or typos, and if you have guesses as to who our masked friends are or where the rest of SVT are at, I would love to hear them! (Most of them are probably pretty obvious, but I thought it might be fun to hear a few theories) 
> 
> Thanks again, love you all, and have a great day!   
> \- GG


	3. The Ex

Junhui is staring. To be fair, when Jun fell face-first into bed last night, he had half expected to wake up and realize that Yan An’s invasion of his home was all a dream, a symptom of the concussion he probably had. Waking up to the smell of coffee brewing and the sight of his ex-boyfriend puttering around the kitchen like he’d never left was, well, surreal to say the least. He figures it is well within his rights to stare. 

“You’re still here.” 

Yan An looks up from where he’s been slicing open a grapefruit (Jun didn’t even know he  _ had  _ grapefruit) and raises an elegant eyebrow. “Yes, Junhui, I’m still here. What did you think, I was just going to leave in the middle of the night to try and find a hotel room in Pledis City?” He scoffs. “Please, I value my health and safety a little more than that.” 

Despite the fact that Junhui regards Pledis City with similar distaste, he can’t help but feel a little offended by Yan An’s dismissive tone. It reminds him of all the arguments they had back when they were still dating: about all the ways Jun was wasting his potential in a shitty city like Pledis, about how Yan An could support both of them with his trust fund, about how they were both wildly different people who only dated because they had no one else to turn to. 

“For the record,” Yan An turns away from the grapefruit with a sigh, “I  _ am _ sorry to have come back on such short notice and with no warning.” 

Jun raises an eyebrow testily, “And for breaking into my apartment.” 

“Yes, that too.” Yan An at least has the grace to look ashamed. 

In the moment of awkward silence that follows, Jun takes the opportunity to take in Yan An in all of his day-lit glory. He hasn’t changed much physically, just his hair color (a sensible blonde, not like the cotton-candy pastel explosion he had been sporting years ago) and his choice of clothing (also more sensible), but there’s something different about him in the set of his shoulders. He stands confidently, no longer trying to hide his six-foot plus height under a slouch and a baggy sweater. His eyes, too, seem deeper, more settled. 

The Yan An that Jun knew was wild, in the best ways and the worst. Back then, both of them were young and terrified and so fucking angry at the world. Yan An was a force of nature, driven by resentment and grief, and he was the most beautiful thing Jun had ever seen. 

He’s still beautiful, but now looking at him doesn’t feel like looking at the sun and feeling it burn away at his retinas. Yan An looks wonderful, well-rested, mature, happy, like an adult, and Jun can’t help but compare himself to that image. Jun hasn’t changed a goddamned bit. 

“Hey,” Yan An’s concerned voice cuts through Jun’s musing, “are you okay? You spaced out for a bit there.” 

Struggling to paste a smile over his disquiet, Jun nods, moving out of the hallway (where he’s been standing, staring, like a creep) and into the kitchen. “Yeah, I’m okay, I’m fine.” 

Yan An moves with unfamiliar grace, drawing near enough to catch Jun’s hand in his own. “Junhui. . .” 

There’s something about the way Yan An says his name that Jun has always loved. It sounds like warmth, like it means something, and even though Jun fell out of love with Yan An years ago, the shape of his name in the other man’s mouth still steadies his pulse. Jun sighs out unsteadily, allowing Yan An to run a comforting thumb over his blue-bruised knuckles. 

“Are you still hurt?”

Jun can’t bring himself to meet Yan An’s eyes, but he nods, forcing out a hoarse, “Yeah, just a bit, though.” The other’s hand clutches his a bit tighter, and Jun can feel Yan An’s eyes on him like they’re a physical force. “I’ll be fine,” he mumbles, finally looking up from the patchy linoleum to meet the worried gaze of his ex, “seriously. You can stop worrying about me, you know.” 

Yan An scoffs again, but this time it’s not mean-spirited. “Junhui, I am always going to worry about you.” The depth of sincerity in Yan An’s eyes shocks Jun. After everything they put each other through, Jun would have considered himself lucky to even  _ see _ his ex again, much less share a heartfelt moment in the kitchen of their old apartment. 

A tiny smile breaks across Yan An’s face, and he tugs at Jun’s arm, pulling towards the kitchen, “Come eat something,” he checks his watch, “and then we’re going shopping.” His hand slides out of Jun’s grasp, and Yan An leaves the kitchen, calling over his shoulder as he goes. “You have like, half a bagel in your pantry and entirely too many protein bars to be considered healthy. I'm going to buy you some actual food for once, got it?” 

Perhaps, Jun muses, grinning ruefully and grabbing a spoon, Yan An is still that force of nature he remembers him as. 

\-----

The grocery store that Yan An insists on going to is halfway across town. This would normally be a problem given that Jun doesn’t have a car, but almost immediately after they exit Hannigan Luxury Apartments, Yan An waves an elegant hand and flags down a taxi. After almost five years of living in Pledis, Junhui has about a 15% success rate of flagging down cabs, whereas Yan An easily gets one within the first thirty seconds of stepping out on the street. When they were still living together, Jun was convinced that Yan An had some sort of cab-hailing superpower (a claim that Yan An vehemently denied, insisting that Jun was just short and poor-looking). Jun has missed Yan An for various reasons, but mostly for his ability to get a taxi anywhere in Pledis City. He tells him as much, and Yan An punches him in the arm. 

When they arrive at Dreamcatcher Market, Jun nearly chokes on his own saliva at how nice the place is. Living in the Rose District means that Jun is accustomed to what he affectionately refers to as “distressed urban chic” (which is just a fancy way of saying that everything in the Rose District wears a tired patina of rust, grease, and neon). Despite being only about ten years old, the Rose District looks ancient. It’s dark and dirty and the buildings seem like they’ve been built at an angle to lean out over the sidewalks. 

Pledis City proper isn’t like that. It's bright and clean; the very picture of a modern city, and the further away from the Rose District the cab travels, the more evident the disparity becomes. The roads smooth out, the buildings get cleaner and better lit, and people walk on the sidewalks with comfort, their heads up, their posture relaxed. Walking like that in the Rose District will get you mugged. Junhui know from experience. 

Dreamcatcher Market clearly belongs here, with its warmly lit interior and cheerfully colored signs proclaiming things like “sustainably grown” and “environmentally friendly”. Yan An, who has been filling the silence with a constant stream of chatter, looks up from his phone as soon as they arrive.

“Well this looks nice!” 

Jun can't seem to muster up the same enthusiasm, but he follows Yan An out of the cab. Being this far away from his apartment (and consequently his suit) makes Junhui incredibly nervous. “How long do you think this will take?” He asks Yan An while fiddling with a loose string on his hoodie.

Absentmindedly moving Jun’s hand away from the rapidly unraveling thread, Yan An answers as he guides the two of them into the store, “Junhui, dearest, I promise you, the city will be fine,” Yan An grabs a basket from the stack by the door and smiles at another customer, “nothing horrible is going to happen in the time it takes us to buy you some vegetables.” The man smiles back, the Rolex on his wrist glinting expensively as he leaves with his basketful of organic quinoa and activated charcoal toothpaste. 

“You don't know that,” Jun mutters darkly under his breath, but follows Yan An into the produce section anyway.

They peruse the fruits and vegetables and Junhui finds that he feels very uncomfortable around so much fresh produce considering most of his sustenance comes from hot pockets, instant ramen, and granola bars, so he pretty much just nods along to whatever Yan An suggests. This seems to please his ex, at least, so by the time they’ve finished feeling up a bunch of avocados and moved on to the next section, Yan An is in high spirits. 

“Hey.” As Junhui tries to comprehend the astronomically high price of organic free-range chicken breasts, he only barely registers Yan An’s voice. “Junhui, I just asked you what kind of steak you wanted for dinner tonight.”

Fighting through the haze of confusion and distress, Jun tears his gaze away from the plastic-wrapped chicken and turns to his ex. “Yeah, uh, whatever you want to get is fine.” 

Yan An rolls his eyes but smiles nonetheless and confidently selects a pair of rib-eyes. “Great! I’ve been itching to try out this new recipe that my Changgu’s mom gave me.” As soon as the sentence is out of his mouth, Yan An freezes like he’s said something wrong. 

“Who’s Changgu?” There’s something about the way Yan An says the name that reminds Jun of the way the taller man used to say his name. It’s soft and affectionate and tempered by the slightest hint of teasing, and Jun has a feeling he knows exactly who Changgu is. 

“Changgu is my fiancé.” There’s a beat of uncomfortable silence in which Yan An refuses to look up from the meat cooler. “I didn’t say anything because I wasn’t sure how you’d react.” His face is pinched, and for the first time, Yan An looks nervous. “I was worried that you wouldn’t want to talk to me in the first place. I didn’t want to risk not being able to see you again. I didn’t know how you’d feel about,” he waves a hand in Jun’s general direction, “you know. . . how we ended and me moving on and all that.”

Resentment wells up inside Junhui’s chest like water from a clogged drain and he can’t stop himself from spitting out, “Well fuck you, I guess. It’s good to know that you still think that I’m irrationally jealous.” 

“I did not say that,” Yan An warns, standing up to his full height and closing the distance between the two of them. 

Standing here, in the middle of this gentrified neighborhood, surrounded by things he couldn't hope to afford even if he pinched pennies for months, Junhui feels old wounds open again. “Sure,” he sneers, “just like you didn’t say all that shit three years ago right before you left me in the middle of the night with a note that just said ‘sorry.’”

Yan An leans in close and spits, “See, this is exactly why I didn't tell you about Changgu; because I knew you would be a whiny, self-hating pissbaby about it!” A woman in an expensive-looking jacket shuffles closer to grab something from a nearby display, glancing nervously between them like they’re wild animals about to tear into each other. 

Seeing this, Yan An moves back, expression softening, posture slumping, “Shit Junhui,” with the fight gone out of him, Yan An just seems tired, “I’m sorry.” He grabs their cart and begins to move slowly down the nearest isle, but before he gets too far, he turns and fixes Jun with a wide-eyed stare. “Please believe me when I say that I  _ am _ sorry about everything that happened between us. And I should’ve told you about Changgu. I’m just. . .” his gaze drops to the fake wood floor, “I’m sorry.” 

Watching his ex walk away from him yet again, Jun feels his anger suddenly dissolve. In the three years since Yan An left, Jun has wasted entirely too much time thinking about a man he had stopped being in love with even before the breakup, and even more time desperately trying not to think about it. Jun’s tired of being angry about this, so instead of wallowing like he would do normally, he follows the defeated line of Yan An’s back down the aisle. 

“So,” he says, sidling up nonchalantly next to Yan An. “What’s he like?” Jun grabs a random item off the shelf and pretends to inspect it so he won’t have to see Yan An’s face.

There’s a moment of silence before Yan An replies, his words shaped by fondness, “Changgu’s amazing.” 

Jun clears his throat awkwardly, still turning the bottle of Thousand Island dressing in his hands, “Good, that’s . . . I’m glad.” He chances a glance at Yan An, who is currently gazing at a raspberry vinaigrette like it’s a pile of kittens. “You seem happy.” 

Yan An turns that expression on Junhui with a chuckle, “I am, Junhui, I really am.” He looks down at where Jun is tossing the salad dressing bottle nervously between his hands. “Put that back before you drop it. It’s seventeen dollars.” 

Shocked and appalled, Jun’s hands cease their fidgeting and he hastily returns the condiment to its rightful position. “I really hate this store.” 

With a delighted laugh that sounds more than a little relieved, Yan An pats Jun’s shoulder and steers him in the direction of the checkout counter. “I know you do, Junhui, but think of it this way,” Yan An pulls out an expensive-looking leather wallet and digs through it, “I’m settling a long-overdue debt after all the times I made you eat my horrible attempts at cooking.” 

“You didn’t make me do anything,” Jun scoffs in reply, “I ate your inedible lasagna because I thought it was sweet that you had tried.” 

As he’s loading groceries onto the conveyor belt, Yan An lets out an embarrassed chuckle. “Well, that’s nice and all but I’m pretty sure my lasagna was sweeter than my intentions, and I now know that is  _ not _ what lasagna is supposed to taste like.” 

The girl at the counter bags items methodically, the beep beep of the scanner harmonizing with Jun’s giggle. “Yeah,” he says, “I know you don’t need it, but if your future mother-in-law has been able to teach you anything about cooking, I will gladly give my blessing to your marriage.” 

This earns Jun another punch in the arm. “Oh shut up.” 

While Yan An pays for everything (Jun purposely doesn’t look at the total in fear of passing out cold at the sight of it), the cashier gives Jun a strange look. “Hey, sorry if this is weird,” she finally says, “But has anyone ever told you that you kinda look like Half-Moon?” 

Yan An pulls his shiny debit card out of the card reader, gives Jun a perfunctory once-over, slips on a pair of designer sunglasses, and says, “You know, I really don’t see it.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello all! First off, I am so sorry this is late. It's finals week and things in the US are kinda going crazy, so I've been a little distracted. 
> 
> Secondly, as requested by a lovely commenter, I am working on making a fic-specific Tumblr where there will be some extra tidbits of information and probably some of my thoughts during the writing process. That is currently in the works, but again, I've been a bit busy and unfortunately all of this kinda got put on the back burner. 
> 
> Anyway, thank you to everyone who read, commented, and subscribed, I hope you all are having a wonderful time reading, and I hope that everyone is staying safe and healthy during a pretty stressful and scary time. 
> 
> Love you all!


	4. Cops and Bloggers

The taxi ride back to the Rose District starts out normally enough. Yan An (the absolute bastard) flags down a cab in under a minute, they load their groceries into the back, and set off in the direction of Jun’s apartment. In the comfort of the back seat, Yan An tells him about Changgu; about how they met, about the plans for the wedding. It’s nice, honestly. Jun doesn’t really have many people in his life who he can talk to, and certainly none that know his secret identity, so simply having a conversation with someone who he doesn’t have to constantly watch his words around is a relief. 

For the first time in a while, Jun feels at ease. The city outside passes quickly; shopfronts and pedestrians smudging together into an impressionistic blur. Inside the cab is warm and surprisingly comfortable. Jun almost wishes this moment, this glorious, sunlit moment, would stop and crystallize; stay forever in this one perfect instant. 

And then the cab stops abruptly.

Yan An lurches forward, his long legs crashing into the back of the driver's seat. “Ow, what the hell man?” 

The driver doesn’t apologize, just leans back with an arm slung over the backrest. “There’s a buncha cops up ahead stopping people.”

Curious, Jun rolls down the window of the cab and leans out, trying to identify the nature of the event with little success. Cars honk, police officers shout, and a low hum of confusion permeates the air around the temporary traffic stop, but Jun can’t see much past the minivan in front of them except a cluster of people and the corner of a yellow police barricade. 

One of the uniformed officers patrolling the area notices Jun hanging out the window of the cab and begins to walk in his direction. “Sir,” the officer calls out, “I’m going to have to ask you to turn this cab around. This street is closed until further notice.” 

“Of course, Officer,” Jun replies, nodding deferentially, “but can I ask what’s going on?” The minivan starts turning around to leave, every inch revealing more of the commotion on the street. 

With a look of disinterest, the officer waves a hand and says, “Nothing you should worry about, just the usual shit.” There are four police cars parked on the street outside of Santoro’s club, a half a dozen uniformed officers, and what looks like at least one detective. On the far side of the barricade, a nondescript brown van pulls into a nearby alley. It’s the kind of van that the city uses to take bodies back to the morgue. “Rival gangs and all that, you know the drill,” the officer finishes. 

He’s lying. Jun has lived in the Rose District long enough to know that the police don’t give a single fuck about gang violence. Clubs get shot up, people die, and the police roll up the next day with one car and a report pre-filled-out to say “shit happened :)” Most of the cops in the Rose District get paid off by the gangs to not ask questions, so to see so many in one place means that something big must have happened here, something unusual, something that has the cops scared. Whatever happened is bad, and the police are trying to cover it up. 

“Oh damn, well,” Jun says, feigning nonchalance, “thanks for letting me know.” He flashes the officer a smile that isn’t returned and pulls back into the cab’s interior. The car begins to turn around, and Jun gets the briefest glimpse of what used to be the front of Arsenio Santoro’s nightclub. 

He sucks in a breath. It’s totally destroyed. The windows have been shattered, the front doors are pockmarked with bullet holes, and bloody glass scattered across the sidewalk glitters red and glaring in the bright sunlight from overhead. Jun is no stranger to carnage and violence, but something about this feels different and very, very dangerous. The cab rounds the corner and the scene disappears, but the churning feeling in his gut persists. 

Yan An, in the seat next to him, seems to notice Jun’s discomfort. “You okay?” he mouths silently with a worried frown. 

Jun shakes his head a little, unsure of how to respond. There’s something going on, and Jun has a really bad feeling about whatever it is. He’s got to get into that crime scene somehow. “Hey, uh,” he finally says, fixing Yan An with a stare and hoping that the other man receives the message he’s trying to send, “I just realized I forgot to run an errand.” 

For a moment, Yan An looks like he’s going to protest, but then comprehension dawns across his face. “Oh yeah, of course. Do you want to get off here and meet up later?” Despite the easy tone of his voice, Yan An’s gaze is piercing and apprehensive. 

“Yeah, that would be perfect,” Jun says and leans forward to catch the driver’s attention. “Hey man, do you think you could let me out at the next intersection? My friend still needs to get to Hannigan’s, but I’ve got something to do.”

The driver nods and coasts to a stop. As Jun jumps out of the cab, Yan An grabs his arm and whispers, “Be careful.” And then Jun is on the sidewalk a block and a half from the police barricade watching Yan An drive off on his own. 

Jun’s gaze follows the cab until it gets lost amid the late afternoon traffic, mutters, “Alright then, let’s hope this isn’t a mistake,” and sets off in the direction of Santoro’s. 

By the time Jun makes his way back to the barricade, the police have got most of the crowd under control. On the way over, he had made sure to disguise himself a little, ducking into an alleyway to change his hair to a mousy blonde and take a few inches off his height, but he still takes care to not be noticed. There are more cops now, busy sweeping up bloody glass, shooing away curious civilians, and looking altogether more like a functioning police force than Jun has ever seen. Occasionally, a dark-suited detective stalks out of the devastated club to bark an order at a nearby officer. All of them look stiff and uncomfortable and incredibly vigilant. There is absolutely no way Jun is going to get in that front door, but that doesn’t mean he can’t still investigate in other ways. 

Jun is a hero, or at least, his alter-ego is, so he’s more comfortable with dramatic supervillains and high-stakes battles than he is with crime and investigation, but he’s been living in the worst neighborhood of Pledis City for four years, and he’s picked up a few things. Things like always look for cameras. 

And that means he knows that at one point, Mrs. Rodriguez had one perched above the store on the corner right across from where Jun is sitting now. He scans the shop carefully, looking for that tell-tale glint of a lens, trying to see if it’s still there, and his heart sinks when he finds it. The camera is there, but it isn’t in a perch or on a stand or attached to the outside of the shop. Instead, it dangles precariously from a single fraying wire, its other wires severed and drifting like tentacles in the slight breeze. It could be a coincidence, but Jun learned a long time ago not to trust coincidences. 

Another thing Jun has learned is that there is always another way to get where you want to go. 

Ever so casually, Jun walks to the corner away from the crime scene and fades surreptitiously into the first alley he finds. One of the buildings that makes up the alley walls has a fire escape bolted to the outside of it, and Jun takes the opportunity to jump up to it. Pledis, and the Rose District in particular, is full of fire escapes and easily navigable rooftops, and people so rarely look up. Jun travels by roof a lot to avoid being seen. 

This particular fire escape is sturdy and quiet. Some of the older ones squeak like crazy, but at the moment, Jun is able to round the corner to the other side of the building without making much of a sound. In fact, he’s about to drop to the ground and check around to see if Santoro’s has another exit, when a door in the back of the building bursts open.

As quickly as he can manage without losing his footing, Jun spider crawls around the corner of the building and back onto the fire escape. From his vantage point, he watches as two civilians get tossed out of the back of Santoro’s by a pissed-off looking cop. With his slightly-better-than-the-average-human hearing, Jun can clearly hear the two civilians grumbling as they shrug their clothes back into place. 

“I thought I told you guys to stay out of this!” The cop hisses, closing the door and looking around the alleyway for observers. As expected, he doesn’t look up. “You know, one of these days you two are going to get caught by someone who isn’t me and you are not going to like how that turns out.”

The shorter figure, the brunette one still busily straightening his jean jacket, scoffs. “Oh please, we’re better than that.”

“Are you?” The cop asks incredulously, pointedly directing his gaze at the brunette. “Give me the camera.” He then says, holding out an expectant hand in the other figure’s direction. 

The guy in the beanie takes a step back. “What, no!” From this high up, Jun can only see the tops of their heads, so he creeps carefully down the side of the building to get a bit closer. “I’m not giving you my camera,” the beanie guy continues, “Do you know how much I paid for this thing?” 

This time it’s the officer who scoffs. “I would bet a large sum of money that you did not pay more than twenty bucks for that camera, Vernon.” 

The beanie guy, Vernon, sputters indignantly, but his friend comes to the rescue. “That may be true, but it is also irrelevant.” His voice is loud in the echoey in the empty alley, and the cop pats the air frantically, making the universal gesture for “be quiet.” The brunette continues, clearly trying to maintain a more reasonable tone but not exactly succeeding. “You’re not the boss of us, Cheol! We are reporters and our work is important! You have no right to just take our stuff!”

Throwing his hands up in the air agitatedly, the cop whisper-yells, “You are journalism students with a superhero fan blog! And I absolutely have the right to take your stuff when you break into the crime scenes of ongoing murder investigations!” 

“So you admit this was murder?” The brunette retorts with frightening speed. Jun can’t see his face, but the satisfied smirk is evident in the brunette’s tone.

Realizing his mistake, the cop’s shoulders slump. “Oh fuck it.” He runs a hand over his face and continues, defeatedly, “Of course it was murder. Something as big as this? Yeah Santoro was murdered,” his tone sharpens, and he points a finger in the brunette’s face, “but that is off the record, understood?” 

The brunette holds out his hands placatingly, “Okay, okay. But you know as well as I do that this is gonna get covered up.” He steps closer to the cop, moving the threatening finger out of the way. “Please, Cheol, you gotta let us keep what we got. We’ll make sure no record of your involvement gets out, but the people of Pledis need to know what’s been going on.”

For a moment, it looks like the officer is going to relent, but then he sighs and says. “Look, I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but I can’t let you two keep putting yourselves in danger like this. There are plenty of people, including a lot of cops, who wouldn’t hesitate to pull the trigger on you guys if they found out that you’ve been sneaking into crime scenes. I couldn’t live with myself if I knew that you had gotten hurt trying to do my job for me.” He puts a hand on brunette’s shoulder and lowers his head to meet the other man’s gaze. “I promise you; the truth has a way of coming to light.” He reaches out to the beanie guy with an insistent hand, “Now please, Vernon, give me the camera.”

Vernon doesn’t move until the brunette guy sighs dramatically and says, “Just give it to him,” the venom in his voice cuts through the tense atmosphere, “He clearly doesn’t give a damn about upholding the law or whatever it is cops are supposed to do. I thought we were dealing with one of the good ones, but I guess I was wrong.” 

Even from up above, Jun can see the officer visibly wince. 

“Fine,” Vernon mumbles, reluctantly removing the camera from around his neck and slapping it into the cop’s expectant palm, “I hope you sleep well tonight knowing you successfully obstructed justice.” 

The cop, seemingly doing his best to ignore the taunts, pops open the side of the camera and removes the memory card. “I’m keeping this,” he says, slipping it into his pocket before handing the camera back to Vernon. “I know you’re probably not going to believe this,” the cop mutters, eyes downcast, “But I really do admire what you’re doing, I just…” he trails off, tone tinged with something that sounds suspiciously like regret, “I need to be able to keep you safe.” With that, the officer turns around and walks back into Santoro’s before Jun can figure out why he seemed oddly familiar.

Vernon sidles up next to the brunette. “Don’t you think we were a little harsh on him?”

“Cheol is a big boy,” the brunette replies dismissively, waving a hand and turning away from where the officer disappeared back into Santoro’s, “he’ll get over it. The important question is, do you have the other card?”

“Of course I have the other card.” Says Vernon, brandishing a second memory card. 

The brunette spins around, a megawatt smile on his face, and pats Vernon on the cheek a little too enthusiastically. “Oh, yes! This is why we are friends!” 

Jun needs to see what’s on that memory card, so before he can question whether it’s a good idea or not, he drops to the ground and rounds the corner to the alleyway where the two men are. As soon as he does so, they notice his presence and wheel around. Up close, Jun can see that both of them look very young. Bright eyed and fresh-faced, the two look very out of place in a grimy Rose District back alley.

Vernon is the first to recover. “Who the hell are you?”

Spurred into action by his friend, the brunette fires out a quick follow up. “And what are you doing here?”

“The same thing you’re doing, I’d imagine,” Jun replies, making the split-second decision to be honest about his intentions. “I couldn’t help but catch a bit of your conversation with that officer,” both of the other men eye Jun suspiciously, but Jun forges onward, “and well, I guess that means I’m not getting in there to look at that crime scene any time soon.” 

“No,” the brunette says slowly, his expression guarded, “Seungcheol isn’t going to make the same mistake twice. Why do you want to see the crime scene?” 

“Because I know there’s more to whatever happened here than the police are going to admit, and I think you know that too.” The two men shoot each other loaded glances but don’t say anything. “And I know you have no reason to trust me, but I think I can help you.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again lovely readers! I am sorry this chapter is so very late. I've had to move back in with my parents and all my stuff is currently in boxes in the garage, so everything here is kinda crazy. That being said, I did have a great time writing this chapter when I finally got around to it. 
> 
> In other news, at the request of a kind commenter, I have made a blog for this fic. The link to that is [here](https://bassdropontwo.tumblr.com) if you want to check out my random thoughts and ask me anything you'd like about this story. Just a note, there will probably be minor spoilers in some of these posts so if you want to remain in the dark about this fic and make your own guesses, you might want to avoid that blog. At this point there's not much on there, though, so . . . 
> 
> Anyway I hope you guys enjoy chapter four! Thank you so much for all your kudos and kind comments!


	5. Past and Future Crimes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back dear readers!!! I'm alive!!!
> 
> Thanks to a few fantastic comments, the The Batman movie trailer, and 24H by Seventeen, I give you ..... a whole chapter of exposition!!!

“So,” Jun says, fumbling awkwardly with the handle of his coffee mug, “what now?” 

Vernon and the brunette (who by this point, Jun has learned is named Seungkwan) continue to glare suspiciously at him, smushed shoulder to shoulder on the red vinyl bench across the Formica tabletop. Seungkwan breaks the silence first. “Now, we find out if you’re really who you say you are.” His serious tone is quite at odds with the colorful lights and vintage pop music of the Sally’s Diner, but at this point, Jun is just glad they’re out of that alley. It had taken quite a bit of convincing to get Seungkwan to agree to hear him out, and based on the dirty looks he’s getting, Jun isn’t off the hook just yet.

Wordlessly, Vernon pulls out a laptop from his bag and sets it out in front of the two of them, their heads moving in unison to view the screen together. “Full name?” Vernon asks brusquely.

“Wen Junhui,” Jun replies, nervously scanning the diner. “Are you sure we should be doing this out in the open?” There doesn’t seem to be anyone in the immediate vicinity of their corner booth, but that doesn’t lessen Jun’s paranoia.

Vernon and Seungkwan both shake their heads reassuringly. “Listen, Jun,” Seungkwan waves a hand dismissively in his direction, “We’ve been coming here to work on stuff like this for years. We’ve got a friend who works here who knows to keep out of our business and not sit any other patrons within earshot of this booth.” 

“Yeah, and plus the shakes here are baller,” Vernon chimes in unhelpfully. 

Despite their sincerity, this doesn’t exactly inspire confidence within Jun, but he lets it go. He’s really only here to get information from these two, it’s no skin off his nose if they get themselves in trouble by being dumbasses. “Okay,” he relents and goes back to picking half-heartedly at his food. 

While Jun pushes fries around the plate and takes quick sips of lukewarm coffee, Vernon’s fingers clack against the keyboard and Seungkwan’s eyes scan the screen hungrily. The brunette has a surprisingly good poker face, his only change in expression a few slight twitches in his brows, and with every second that goes by, Jun can feel his upper lip grow sweatier. 

“Alrighty then,” Seungkwan says finally, leaning back and cracking his knuckles, “stop me if I get anything wrong. Wen Junhui, 24 years old, freelance graphic designer.” He looks up at Jun, who nods at the correct information. “You moved to Pledis five years ago from New York which was around the time you legally changed your name from Moon Junhwi, can you tell me why you did that?” 

The question catches Jun off guard and it takes a moment to register. “What?” In the back of his mind, Jun can almost remember Heechul’s furious expression, can almost feel the bite of the cold on his wet cheeks and the scratchiness of his cheap dress shirt at his neck, and for a moment, his knuckles ache. “Um, well, Wen Junhui is my birth name. I was adopted. After my parents …” he trails off to work through the uncomfortable lump in his throat, “after they died, I changed my name.” He doesn’t elaborate any further on that point. 

Seungkwan hums, his eyebrows arching, but continues with his questioning. “You live alone and have stayed out of trouble for the past few years, but it looks like,” he says, squinting at the screen, “you have a criminal record.” 

This is the breaking point for Jun who is still reeling from the previous question. “Okay what the hell?” he bursts out, “How do you know all this stuff?” 

“The Pledis City Police Department may be an irredeemable cesspool of violence and corruption,” Seungkwan says over the rim of the laptop, “but they do keep remarkably good records.”

In this moment, Jun has the strangest feeling that he might have underestimated these two. “Did you hack into the PCPD database?” 

Vernon, who up until this point has just been muttering about how all police departments are irredeemable cesspools of violence and corruption looks up and shakes his head. “Nah, we didn’t have to. Cheol keeps his username and password on a sticky note stuck to the bottom of his desktop.” 

“That man cannot keep a secret,” Seungkwan agrees. “But you’re avoiding the question. Why were you arrested on June 12, 2013?” 

Jun is very unused to people knowing things about him. Even Yan An isn’t privy to much information about Jun’s past, partially because Jun doesn’t want him to get bogged down in the family trauma when Yan An has enough of that himself, but mostly because Jun does his best to avoid thinking about it altogether. June 12th was one of the worst nights of his life. It was the night he found out that his very existence was based on a lie, and he has spent a long time trying to forget it. “Why,” he says finally, his voice choked and distant to his own ears, “do you even need to know that?” 

A look of irritation crosses Seungkwan’s face. “Because, Jun,” he says, leaning forward in the booth so his quiet hiss can easily be heard, “you approached us in that alleyway, suspicious as all hell, telling us that you want to help. Well I’m sorry if I’m a little skeptical of your motives.” He looks back at Vernon, who doesn’t say anything but just reaches out and places a steady hand on Seungkwan’s shoulder. The brunette breathes slowly then settles back into his seat and continues, “I want to believe you, but I need to make sure that this doesn’t endanger me or my partner.” He hesitates on the last word, shooting Vernon a nervous glance. “So please, just answer the question.” 

As much as Jun hates the ease at which these two have brought back painful memories, he can’t help but sympathize with them. Pledis, particularly the areas Seungkwan and Vernon have found themselves in, can be a dangerous place, and Jun understands the desire to protect themselves. Unfortunately, he also has to answer the question believably, which might prove to be hard because the circumstances of his arrest revolve very heavily around the fact that Jun isn’t even human. June 12 was the night he discovered that fact. 

The pair look at him expectantly and Jun feels the weight of his secrets bearing down on him with frightening speed. 

“Okay,” he begins finally, “What you have to understand is that my family was super close when I was growing up. My parents and my brother loved me unconditionally, I was never treated differently because I was adopted, hell, I even _looked_ like them. Enough so that people didn’t even know I was adopted.” He swallows deeply, the pain in his chest making it difficult to continue. “Including me. June 12 was the night my parents told me about my adoption. I… took it badly.” Jun can almost feel two pairs of eyes burning into the top of his head as he fixes his gaze on the now-cold fries on his plate. He can’t bring himself to look up. “I stole my parent’s car, and when the police found me to take me home, I drove into the front of a convenience store. When they pulled me out of the car, they arrested me.” He shrugs and pushes his coffee mug around the table in abstract circles. “And that’s the story.” 

Of course, as accurate as the story is in some places, Jun has left a lot out. He left out the part where his parents told him about finding his infant body in a crater in the backyard of their rental house in China. He left out the part where he spent his entire childhood subconsciously shapeshifting to look more like his older brother. And he left out the part where in the middle of his furious chase from the police, his hands started glowing with purple energy that destroyed the drive train and sent him careening into the front of the local 7-Eleven. He flexes his fingers, feeling the constant buzz of energy move just under the surface of his skin. No, this story that he’s told doesn’t come close to the truth of the matter. 

After a long moment of uncomfortable silence, Jun finally looks up to see Vernon and Seungkwan avoiding his gaze, their expressions caught between sympathetic and guilty. It’s a look Jun remembers getting a lot in the days after the accident and in the weeks following his parents’ deaths. 

“Okay, well,” Vernon says, tapping his fingers in an awkward rhythm against the tabletop, “thanks for being honest, I guess.”

Jun almost laughs, but instead simply nods his head, clears his throat and says, “Yeah, no problem. So tell me about this crime scene.” 

Shocked into action, Seungkwan’s demeanor changes in an instant. “Of course,” he states, an air of professionalism injected into his tone. “So obviously you know that Santoro’s was attacked in the early hours of the morning. The call came in at 6 a.m. but the cops didn’t get there till around 9. Vernon and I arrived a few hours later and were able to get in pretty easily.” 

Vernon, in the middle of untangling a few camera cables, looks up and interjects, “Yeah, it was actually kinda weird, Santoro's was completely shut down, but there weren’t that many cops there. Just a few CSI guys and like, one detective.” He stretches the cable out to connect his camera to the laptop. “They all seemed, I dunno, really preoccupied, I guess?”

“Yeah, absolutely,” Seungkwan agrees, nodding emphatically, “the cops seemed sloppy. They were clearly trying to cover something up, but they seemed…” he trails off, considering, “spread thin, like there was something else going on.” 

“So what were they trying to cover up?” Jun wonders aloud.

With a nod of his head, Vernon mutters and taps at the laptop’s keyboard, “That’s the question isn’t it?” He flips the laptop around to show Jun the screen. “We think it may have something to do with this.” 

The picture on the screen is gruesome. It must have been taken after the coroner’s people went through, but even the lack of bodies doesn’t lessen the horror of the scene inside Santoro’s. Spare bullet casings glint dully, scattered over every available surface; broken glass from shattered bottles casts odd refractions onto broken furniture; and a streak of blood, so dark the red is almost black, drips down the wall. Centered in the photo, directly above the smear of blood, is an eight scrawled on the wall in spray paint, bold and uncompromising. 

“Arsenio Santoro and two of his hired guns were killed in a shootout early this morning, and when the police arrived at the scene, the perpetrator was gone and that mark,” Seungkwan says, pointing at the dark eight on the wall, “was painted above Santoro’s body.” 

Vernon cuts in, turning the laptop back around to select a different photo, “And like, none of this would be very noteworthy except for the fact that just three weeks ago, a man named Isaak Semenov was murdered and his house was marked with the same eight.” He pushes the laptop back in Jun’s direction.

This photo is very different from the first. It’s clearly been taken in someone’s home. There’s a shiny, glass-topped coffee table, nice wallpaper, and no sign of violence anywhere except for the dark stain of blood on the otherwise plush-looking couch. The eight is less visible this time, spray painted directly onto a blue throw pillow that would have sat directly next to the body. This photo speaks not of indiscriminate violence, but of cold-blooded murder. The unease that Jun has felt since he left his apartment this morning has risen to a nearly unbearable level.

“We had a rough time getting this picture,” Vernon says. “Semenov’s place was locked up tight by the time we heard anything about it. I think if the cops hadn’t been so busy today, Santoro’s would have been in the same shape.” Despite his previous assurances, Vernon takes a furtive glance over his shoulder at the diner’s few patrons and then leans forward over the table. “In fact, we’re pretty sure that Semenov and Santoro aren’t the only murders that fit this MO. The police report for Semenov’s murder was half-filed before the whole thing got pulled and replaced with a total load of bullshit. _We_ think,” Vernon says, waving a hand between him and Seungkwan, “there’s at least one other unreported murder that’s happened in the last month.”

Seungkwan studies Jun’s face intently, “So does any of this mean anything to you? The names, the eight, the locations?”

“I mean, I’ve heard the names of the victims, but otherwise it means absolutely nothing,” Jun answers honestly, “In fact, it doesn’t even make sense. Why the hell go after Santoro _and_ Semenov?” 

Both of his companions look puzzled by his question. “I mean,” Vernon questions hesitantly, “Aren’t they both mob guys?” 

All things considered; Jun hasn’t lived in Pledis very long. However, between living in the Rose District and spending all his free time navigating life as a free-lance hero, Jun has had to learn a lot about the inner workings of the city. Upon first glance, Pledis’s criminal underbelly may seem contained to the Rose District, but year after year of living and fighting and reading The Librarian’s dead boring reports has impressed upon Jun that things are a lot more complicated than they seem. 

For outsiders like Vernon and Seungkwan, this may seem like an intriguing mystery of mob murder, but Jun isn’t so sure. “Santoro and Semenov are connected to criminal activity yes,” he answers, trying to explain everything as clearly as possible, “but for someone to kill both of them…” he cuts himself off, frustrated. “Semenov was one of Alek Pasternak’s money guys, and they were big players in the Rose District until about two years ago. Mafia types,” he clarifies. “Semenov’s been out of the game since Pasternak retired and even before that, it was known that he was really only there because Semenov was married to Pasternak’s sister.” Jun’s mind whirls, trying to remember the correct information, trying to make connections, trying to find any thread that connected these two murders. “But Santoro? He was a thug, kind of like a mercenary enforcer type that got hired out to do people’s dirty work. He was connected to the gangs, but that was before my time here in the city. He hasn’t really been active other than running his club for, god, like six or seven years?” 

Jun can see the confusion on Seungkwan and Vernon’s faces, their brows drawn and their eyes wary. “So what are you saying?” the former asks tentatively, “You said it yourself, these two were active in organized crime. Why is it so hard to believe that they were killed by the same person?” 

“Because murder needs a motive, right?” Jun runs a restless hand through his hair, “You take either of these instances separately and you could probably come up with a dozen reasons as to why someone would want to kill these guys. But even though Santoro and Semenov may have worked in Pledis around the same time, I doubt they ever even _met_ each other much less worked on the same projects. And if it was just some vindictive mafia stuff, why the hell are the police trying so hard to cover it up?” 

Seungkwan considers this for a moment then says decisively, “There has to be some connection though! There are too many similarities for these cases to be disparate events. I guarantee there’s been more than two murders.” 

“Or there will be,” Vernon adds darkly.

This sobering statement casts an uncomfortable silence over the table. Jun finally breaks it, rubbing a hand over his face and saying, “And if we’re right and the police have been covering this up as well as they have, then it’s going to be hard to find any information on the other murders. Past or future.” He levels Seungkwan and Vernon with a hard stare and for the first time, realizes how distressingly young they both are. “I think,” Jun says with a sigh, “That you two have gotten yourselves into something dangerous. More dangerous than you realize.”

Immediately, both their faces harden. “And that’s why we have to do something about it,” Seungkwan states, “People have a right to know what’s happening to them. If we have to be the ones to give it to them,” he looks at Vernon who gives a quick, assured nod, “then it doesn’t matter that it’s dangerous.” 

There’s an infectiousness to their certainty that Jun can’t ignore. It reminds him of being young and passionate, of how it felt coming to Pledis and donning the title of Half-Moon for the first time, of how it felt to still believe that he could make the world a better place. Jun wonders where along the way he lost that. 

“Okay,” he says, resolving to do whatever he can to keep these two safe, “then I guess I’m in too.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oho, well what do we have here???? A mention of a mysterious eight??? Whatever could that mean?????? 
> 
> In all seriousness, thank you to everyone who left kudos and comments and just generally encouraged me to keep going on this. I do genuinely love this fic and I hope I can keep updating with more frequency. Thankfully, I'm almost moved into my new apartment and I expect having that space to myself will help with my productivity levels (ya know, knock on wood). 
> 
> Anyway, thanks again everyone. I absolutely love hearing from people about this fic, and I welcome all questions. Let me know if you notice any typos or errors, or if you just want to chat! I love you all!
> 
> \- GG


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